Devotional

Mr. T sheds gold after Katrina destruction - Yahoo! News

PASADENA, Calif. - Mr. T has given himself a makeover. The former television action star shed the piles of gold chains that were his signature look after witnessing the destruction from Hurricane Katrina.
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“As a spiritual man, I felt it would be a sin against my God for me to wear all that gold again because I spent a lot of time with the less fortunate,” the actor said Thursday at the Television Critics Association’s summer meeting.

Mr. T, Christianity

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Journal of pudge (3605)

After my previous journal entry on the book “Misquoting Jesus,” I received e-mail from a publishing house, Nimble Books, asking me to take a look at their recent publication, “Misquotes in ‘Misquoting Jesus’“.

I got halfway through the PDF on the plane, on the way back from YAPC in Chicago, and it’s a good book. And I don’t say that just because it agrees with most of what I said (except that for the most part it expresses it better, and with more authority).

The author, Dillon Burroughs, emphasizes a few main points, particularly that — as I noted — the author, Bart Ehrman, is mostly correct on the facts he presents, but he simply draws unreasonable conclusions. Burroughs heavily quotes people who have worked with Ehrman and are familiar with his work.

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blog.myspace.com/joee_t

Here is a list of books that have been recommended to me for the purpose of moving from a more concrete-operational (literal) view of religion, to a more formal operational (abstract) view of religion.

Neither approach is appropriate without a dash of mystery. I also like to add a sprinkle of cosmological neurophysiology.

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blog.myspace.com/autodidacticus

T.N.D. Mettinger is a senior Swedish scholar who has written what is perhaps the most recent academic treatment of dying and rising gods in antiquity. He states that the scholarly consensus is that none of these pre-date Christianity and that the few scholars who think differently are viewed as an almost extinct species. Although Mettinger himself admits to going against the consensus, believing there are as many as five pre-Christian accounts of dying and rising gods, he admits that two of the five are uncertain. Of the remaining three, one is said to live again but is never seen by anyone including the gods, while another appears in a report that is unclear. According to Mettinger, only one clear account of a dying and rising god predates Christianity. However, he adds that this account is so different from the Christian account that no parallel can be said to exist.

In summary, the consensus of todays scholars agree that there are no pre-Christian accounts of dying and rising gods, and the most recent treatment of the subject is from a scholar who disagrees but adds that none are parallels to the resurrection of Jesus.

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Amazon.com: Who Cares: The Surprising Truth About Who Is Charitable, Who Isn’t, And Why It Matters for America: Books: Arthur C. Brooks

Surprising proof that conservatives really are more compassionate–and more generous–than liberals

We all know we should give to charity, but who really does? Approximately three-quarters of Americans give their time and money to various charities, churches, and causes; the other quarter of the population does not. Why has America split into two nations: givers and non-givers?

Arthur Brooks, a top scholar of economics and public policy, has spent years researching this trend, and even he was surprised by what he found. In Who Cares, he demonstrates conclusively that conservatives really are compassionate-far more compassionate than their liberal foes. Strong families, church attendance, earned income (as opposed to state-subsidized income), and the belief that individuals, not government, offer the best solution to social ills-all of these factors determine how likely one is to give.

charity

The Revealer: Sequins and Solidarity Forever

The media does Christian conservatives a disservice when it fails to notice that their movement is organized around the idea of helping people.

As a forthcoming book by statistician Arthur Brooks, Who Cares, demonstrates, religious conservatives give more to charity than liberals do by any measure. Not just in sheer numbers, but as a percentage of individual income. And not just to their churches, but to charities that really do provide food, medicine, and education for the poor. The one victory the tepid religious left of the moment can claim is the media misconception that religious liberals are more charitable, that they care more about the poor. They’re not, and they don’t. Rather, some of them — those not busy playing to the press — care differently.

charity

Ben Witherington

    Ten Commandments for the Internet Age

1. Thou shalt not have any other Providers before me.
2.  Thou shalt not make for thyself a sacrilegious image using Photoshop or Powerpoint.
3. Thou shalt not bow down and worship thy technology for I am a jealous God punishing the third and fourth generation of computer programs with bugs and viruses and the blue screen of death.
4. Thou shalt not misuse the name of the Lord using emoticons, symbols, java scripts or other flippant forms of expression.
5. Remember the Shut Down time and do not Restart during it. Six days ye shall compute and do all your email and word processing but on the seventh day cease, to make room for the Word Perfect.
6. Honor your parents’ computer illiteracy and answer their snail mail so you may live long in the land.
7. Thou shalt not murder thy computer just because Microsoft Works is an oxymoron.
8.  Thou shalt not commit adultery by means of cyber porn.
9. Thou shalt not steal another’s data, identity, nor illegally download or copy things.
10.  Thou shalt not give false testimony on a blog against thy neighbor whilst hiding behind a pseudonymous blog name.

    Thou shalt not covet thy sister’s laptop, nor her printer, nor her Ipod, nor her cellphone, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.

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CLEVELAND, May 10 /PRNewswire/ — Frank E. Peretti, a best-selling “spiritual warfare” Christian novelist with more than 12 million books in print, has launched his first-ever official Web site, frankperetti.com (http://www.frankperetti.com/). Peretti’s Web site launch coincides with the April 2006 release of his newest novel, “House,” which he co-wrote with Ted Dekker.

Visitors to Peretti’s site will find an event and appearances calendar, Frank’s Blog, discussion board, current news, online store, and much more.

“I think it’s just great! I’m getting a real kick out of watching folks interact that have a love for fiction and are fans of my books,” says Peretti. “I am on the site a lot more than I thought I might be - it’s a fun place to hang out. The message boards sort of have a life of their own, and it’s great fun to watch them grow and develop in all kinds of directions. I’m very happy with the site.”

…

The author of 21 titles, Peretti has been called “America’s hottest Christian novelist.” His books include the Christian best-sellers “The Oath” and “This Present Darkness,” as well as numerous children’s books.

Peretti’s two spiritual warfare novels, “This Present Darkness” (1988) and “Piercing the Darkness” (1989), captivated readers, together selling more than 3.5 million copies. His Christian book “The Oath” (1995) has sold over a million copies and was awarded the 1996 ECPA Gold Medallion Award for best fiction.

This guy is huge in Christian bookselling. He’s done some very good stuff. One of our favorites is a radio screenplay called “Tillie” about the ghost of an aborted girl.

Today’s Bible verse of the day:

1 Corinthians 15:20-22

“ But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”

I decided to look up firstfruits.

Ex 22.29

You shall not delay to offer the first of your ripe produce and your juices. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me.

Time for a trip to The Produce Station!

A Cretaceous terrestrial snake with robust hindlimbs and a sacrum : Nature

:
A Cretaceous terrestrial snake with robust hindlimbs and a sacrum

Sebastián Apesteguía1,2 and Hussam Zaher3

It has commonly been thought that snakes underwent progressive loss of their limbs by gradual diminution of their use1. However, recent developmental and palaeontological discoveries suggest a more complex scenario of limb reduction, still poorly documented in the fossil record2, 3, 4, 5. Here we report a fossil snake with a sacrum supporting a pelvic girdle and robust, functional legs outside the ribcage. The new fossil, from the Upper Cretaceous period of Patagonia, fills an important gap in the evolutionary progression towards limblessness because other known fossil snakes with developed hindlimbs, the marine Haasiophis, Pachyrhachis and Eupodophis, lack a sacral region. Phylogenetic analysis shows that the new fossil is the most primitive (basal) snake known and that all other limbed fossil snakes are closer to the more advanced macrostomatan snakes, a group including boas, pythons and colubroids. The new fossil retains several features associated with a subterranean or surface dwelling life that are also present in primitive extant snake lineages, supporting the hypothesis of a terrestrial rather than marine origin of snakes

Boo-ya!